Photo credit: Sharon Gabay — File:Avram Hershko.jpg (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Avram Hershko
born 1937 · Israel · 20th century
Nobel Chemistry 2004
Hungarian-born Israeli biochemist at the Technion who unravelled the ubiquitin system of protein degradation, central to cell cycle regulation and cancer biology.
Nobel Prize work
With Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose, he discovered ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation: cells tag doomed proteins with the small protein ubiquitin via a cascade of E1, E2 and E3 enzymes, marking them for destruction by the proteasome. The discovery revealed how cells control protein quality and regulates countless processes, and later inspired drugs such as bortezomib.
Fields
Related topics
Protein structure and function
A protein is a sequence that folds into a shape; its surface and flexibility help determine what it can bind or catalyse.
PROTACs, targeted protein degradation
PROTACs are heterobifunctional molecules that redirect cellular protein-quality-control machinery to degrade a selected target.